No Flu Shot Needed

We are deep into the funk and the haze of lambing season. We have been going at it for over a month now and let me assure you that the fun has worn off and the zombie state has taken over. This morning I fell asleep drinking my mid-morning cup of coffee. So much for caffeine helping you stay awake. I swear each morning as I go out to check the ewes I meet myself coming back in.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand I signed up for this and no one (especially among my so-called friends) is going to feel sorry for me. I am sure that in a month or two I will look back and realize it really wasn’t that bad, but it sure doesn’t feel that way right now. You see lambing season is bad enough, but I am just getting over the crud.

Let’s set some background information here, I never get sick and if I do it is rarely that bad. That is why in the past I have poo pooed getting a flu shot in the fall. Dad does every year as does Jennifer and both have been on my case to get one too. It is not that I have never gotten one, I got one back in 2001 or 2002 and it did me no good. Or at least that is what I had told myself. I went through all that trouble got a stick in the arm and no flu.

Its not that I am opposed to getting a flu shot, I am not one of those anti vaccination people. In fact, I am quite the opposite, my kids got every vaccination they could get. We were at the doctor’s office and if it protected them, why not. No, for me it is a matter of time. I simply do not have time to put down everything and go get a flu shot. Well, that and I am a guy. Did I mention the fact that I don’t have a doctor? My old doctor moved five maybe ten years ago and I haven’t had the need to see one yet.

In any case, last Thursday I started feeling a tickle in my throat. Nothing to be alarmed about but the longer the day went the more my nose got stuffed up. It was just a little cold, nothing I couldn’t power through. The next morning, I woke up and my head was plugged up, but I also felt tired and achy. Alarms were starting to go off in my head. I mentioned this to Dad and he said something about feeling good and getting a flu shot. He thought maybe the two went together.

As the day drug on, so did I. Each task got just a little bit harder. I swore my boots and coveralls must have weighed about eighty pounds each, every step was a major task. I know my coveralls are already bad, but they had not yet reached the point where they really did weigh a lot yet. The final moment that clinched it all for me was when I was sitting in front of my bale pile, contemplating the fact that I needed to load three small square bales of brome hay and not knowing if I could do it. That was the moment I called Dad and admitted that I was sick.

Some how he had suspected that and was already finishing chores at his place. He then came over and finished mine too as I coughed, wheezed and staggered along explaining that I really wasn’t that sick. The next day was Saturday and Jennifer was home to help. Over and over it was pointed out to me that two of the three of us had gotten the flu shot and two of the three of us were healthy enough to be of some help. I shrugged it off as a coincidence.

Sunday rolled around, and I finally started to feel like I might make it. Only a few of the joints in my body ached, I could go a few minutes without coughing and I had enough energy to walk from the house to the barn without resting. I was making progress. Things were looking up, but I was still pretty worn out by the end of the day. This flu stuff was for the birds (oh no, maybe I had the bird flu).

Monday rolled around, and I was pretty much normal, or at least as normal as I get. That morning Jennifer asked me if I had learned my lesson, was I going to do anything else different next year. What else would I want to do different? I am healthy as an ox, I don’t need a flu shot. Things like that take time and I don’t have time to give away. After all I am already three days behind from this past weekend and another couple of hours for the shot would put me further behind. That logic left her speechless.